T

 Do Not Be Afraid

                          God’s power to your weakness

                          God’s light to your darkness

                          God’s love to your loneliness

                          God’s care to your troubles

                          God’s Peace to your distress

                          God’s eternity Fill your life.     By David Adam

Dear God,

I give this day to You. 
May my mind stay centered on the things of spirit.

May I not be tempted to stray from love.
As I begin this day, I open to receive You.
Please enter where You already abide.

May my mind and heart be pure and true,
and may I not deviate from the things of goodness.

May I see the love and innocence in all mankind [sic],
behind the masks we all wear and the illusions of this worldly plane.

I surrender to You my doings this day.
I ask only that they serve You in the healing of the world.

May I bring Your love and goodness with me, to
give unto others wherever I go.

Make me the person You would have me be.
Direct my footsteps, and show me what You would have me do.

Make the world a safer, more beautiful place.
Bless all your creatures.

Heal us all, and use me, dear Lord, that I might know the joy of being used by You.

                                                                                                            Amen.

                                                                        Marianne Williamson from Illuminata

Distance and diversity are part of me. I bless my width and depth. All that is foreign and unfamiliar is yet a part of who I am. Mine is the family of man.[sic]. My tribe inhabits the earth, walking in different lands, speaking in different tongues, but living one life as we go forward. Knowing that I am a part of all life, I cherish differences. I embrace diversity. Recognizing that all faces and forms are my own face and form, I treat myself and others with dignity. We are brothers. We are sisters. We are husband and wife, mother and father. We are a family of many colors and many cloaks. We are one life. The language of the heart speaks to us all. I cherish that which my brother cherishes. I walk in harmony, generosity, and abundance. I share my gifts from the gifts I share.

                                    Julia Cameron in Blessings

Dancing God

Dancing God
passionate leap
of creative energy
skipping among the stars
waltzing on rivers
birthing a universe

Dancing God
tumbling from somewhere
into Jewish territory
whirling Spirit
seeding Mary’s womb
with alluring divinity

Dancing God
uncontainable grandeur
kicking and rolling
in Mary’s flesh
while untamed cousin
echoes the dance
in aunt Elizabeth

Dancing God
spark of angel’s song
shepherds hurrying
like whirling dervishes
gasping in awe
at a surprising child

Dancing God
still passionate today
dynamic movement of love
wooing our hearts
toward oneness and peace
in a tear-stained world

Dance on, Passionate God,
we are your dance now
teach us the tune
show us the steps
it is Christmas
it is time to dance

                                    Joyce Rupp in Out of the Ordinary

Loving others does not mean that we should forget ourselves.
                        His Holiness the Dalai Lama from Imagine all the People

Owning love is like trying to take possession of the air.
                       Rodney Smith, from Lessons from the Dying

Dear God,
Please bless and protect this sacred jewel,
Our vulnerable planet so besieged.
May the rivers and the oceans and the sky and the land
All be repaired somehow, dear Lord.
May the barbarism end, which threatens to destroy our priceless treasure.
For surely the earth has been our home,
The home of our parents unto all generations.
For the sake of our children, Lord,
Save this earth.
Place in all our minds a greater awe before her mysteries.
Shield her and heal her wounds.
Restore her to her former glory.
Save her Lord, from us.
Amen.

                        Marianne Williamson  from Illuminata

On the basis of the belief that all human beings share the same divine nature, we have a very strong ground, a very powerful reason, to believe that it is possible for each of us to develop a genuine sense of equanimity toward all beings.

                                    The Dalai Lama in The Good Heart

Desires

May I speak each day according to Thy justice,
Each day may I show thy chastening, O God;
May I speak each day according to Thy wisdom,
Each day and night may I be at peace with Thee.

Each day may I count the causes of Thy mercy,
May I each day give heed to Thy laws;
Each day may I compose to Thee a song,
May I harp each day Thy praise, O God.

May I each day give love to Thee, Jesu,
Each night may I do the same;
Each day and night, dark and light,
May I laud Thy goodness to me, O God.

The purpose of all the major religious traditions is not to construct big temples on the outside, but to create temples of goodness and compassion inside, in our hearts.

Thinking of human beings alone is a bit narrow.  To consider that all sentient beings in the universe have been our mother at some point in time opens a space of compassion.

The greater our awareness regarding the value and effectiveness of other religious traditions, then the deeper will be our respect and reverence toward other religions.  This is the proper way for us to promote genuine compassion and a spirit of harmony among the religions of the world.

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear

                        Hafiz

We are most deeply asleep at the switch
when we fancy we control
any switches at all.  We sleep
to time’s hurdy-gurdy;
we wake, if we ever wake,
to the silence of God.

Suscipe Me: Accept me, O Lord, just as I am, in my frailty, in my inadequacy, my contradictions, my confusion. Accept me in my complexity. Help me to so live with what I am that what I am may become my way to you.

            Esther deWaal from Living with Contradictions

The Donkey Speaks

You may call me Brother Ass, a play on words,
as Blessed Francis called his body in his humility.
You may remember me as Balaam’s Ass,
who spoke the truth and saved a man.
You might recall how I first carried him--
in his mother’s womb on the stony road to Bethlehem .

But I want to remember the day when I bore him proudly,
directly on my back, feeling his weight,
while people cheered and threw down their cloaks for my rough feet.
It was so easy to bear his body—how we glided through the streets.
I wondered in some way if he was carrying me.
But no, at the end he leaned over and with a pat whispered,
“Well done, my brother.”

Dear God, he has come, the Word has come again.
There is no terror left in silence, in clouds, in gloom.
He has conquered the hate; he has overcome the pain.
Where, days ago, was death lies only an empty tomb.

The secret should have come to me with his birth,
when glory shone through darkness, peace through strife.
For every birth follows a kind of death,
and only after pain comes life.

A little Madness in the Spring

A little Madness in the Spring
Is wholesome even for the King,
But God be with the Clown—

Who ponders this tremendous scene—
This whole Experiment of Green—
As if it were his own!

People must realize that even with all these comforts, all this money, and a CNP that increases every year, they are still not happy. They need to understand that the real culprits are our unceasing desires. Our wants have no end.

            His Holiness The Dalai Lama

To Christ the seed,
            To Christ the harvest:
To the barn of Christ
            May we be brought.

To Christ the sea,
            To Christ the fish:
In the nets of Christ
            May we be caught.

From birth to age,
            From age to death:
Your two arms, Christ,
            About us safe.

From death to ending,
            Not ended but regrown:
In the Paradise of Grace
            May we be transplanted.

            Alexander Donald

Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each separate fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.

            Fyodor Dostoevsky

“The difference between perseverance and obstinancy,” Harriet Beecher Stow wrote, “is that one comes from a strong will and the other one comes from a strong won’t.” Perseverance saves because it enables us to try everything until something works. Obstinancy destroys us because it refuses to imagine any way of doing a thing but ours. One opens us to the world; the other closes us off. Which approach is most like yours?

            Joan Chittister

Dear God

Dear God, please reveal to us
           your sublime
                beauty

 that is everywhere, everywhere, everywhere,
            so that we will never again
                   feel frightened.

My divine love, my love,
              please let me touch
                    your face.

            Francis of Assisi

"Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then for the second time in the history of the world, man will discover fire.”

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

            The Dalai Lama

Dark Testament

Brown girl chanting Te Deums on Sunday
Rust colored peasant with strength of granite,
Bronze girl welding ship hulls on Monday,
Let nothing smirch you, let no one crush you.
Queen of ghetto, sturdy hill-climber,
Walk with the lilt of ballet dancer,

Walk like a strong down-East wind blowing,
Walk with the majesty of the First Woman.
Gallant challenger, millioned-hope bearer,
The stars are your beacons, earth your inheritance,
Meet blaze and cannon with your own heart’s passion,
Surrender to none the fire of your soul…

Pauli Murray

Grey Wolf
We are sending you
to that Great God,
Tell Him
That we, who invented forgiveness
    do not forgive;
That we, who speak of trust
    can not trust;
That we, who invoke faith would not believe.

I write as though you could read.
But I know you understand.
When you have left the forests and tundras
    and no longer leave your sinewy trails within the snows,
    tell Him that
you were made on a different day.

Your howls of bewilderment will echo with the mountain winds.
And your songs will join those of the whales.
Tell Him for me,
“Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”

            O. Fred Donaldson

A Dream I Have Not Dreamt

There is a dream
I have not dreamt,
A vision
I have not seen.

There is in me
A fearsome longing,
Deep as primordial waters
And rooted in
The very womb
Of Earth’s fire.

There is in me
A life not become,
Stirring and reaching out
From the dreams and terrors
Of dark history.

There is in me
A fire not kindled,
Glowing like a lone
And passionate sentinel
Awaiting the dawn.

There is a dream
I have not dreamt,
A vision
I have not seen.

            Edwina Gately

It is Doubt (so often experienced initially as weakness) that changes things. When a man (sic) feels unsteady; when he falters, when hard-won knowledge evaporates before his eyes, he’s on the verge of growth. The subtle or violent reconciliation of the outer person and the inner core often seems at first like a mistake, like you’ve gone the wrong way and you’re lost. But this is just emotion longing for the familiar. Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present.

            John Patrick Shanley from the introduction to “Doubt”

Doubt requires more courage than conviction does, and more energy; because conviction is a resting place and doubt is infinite—it is a passionate exercise. You may come out of my play uncertain. You may want to be sure. Look down on that feeling. We’ve got to learn to live with a full measure of uncertainty.  There is no last word.  That’s the silence under the chatter of our time.

            John Patrick Shanley from the introduction to “Doubt.”

The Bible is the testimony of two worshiping communities, Hebrew and Christian, about their faith. It speaks most profoundly to us as we step into that faith view of reality.  The opposite of faith is not doubt, but fear. Faith implies risk. I will cast my life on this possibility that God is for me. I do not have to have any proof except my commitment. I do not have to claim complete understanding—that is idolatry. The faith view of reality is frightening in its openness, and so institutions are always trying to control reality with dictums and laws and creeds.

 Stories are too fanciful for the timid. They can say too many things at the same time.     

            Verna Dozier

A Dieter’s Prayer

Heavenly Father, at the first twinge of hunger
Let me turn to you first for fulfillment.
Fill me with your love.
Fill me with your truth.
Fill me with your compassion.
Fill me with your wisdom.
Fill me with your peace.
Fill me with your joy.
Help me to preserve this holy temple you have given me.
Help me to honor my body with healthy choices.
Help me to control my cravings and to discern my true hunger.
Do I seek nourishment for my body or sustenance for my soul?
Let me seek you first, knowing everything else will be given to me.

            Glenna Mahoney

When we waste our time talking about sin as individual acts—usually individual acts someone else is doing—we miss the power of the biblical idea of sin.  Jesus was very incisive in his judgment on this response to individual acts: paying attention to the splinter in someone else’s eye while ignoring the log in our own.  Sin is a misuse of human freedom that separates us from God, from other people, even from ourselves. In fact, our very concern about other people’s sins is a manifestation of sin. Sin is separation. The wholeness of creation is broken.

            Vernia Dozier in The Dream of God

We wax dewy-eyed over love in the New Testament, but we ignore justice in the Old so we don’t know what we are talking about when we talk about love. Love is justice in action. Love God and your neighbor as yourself. The commandment is one. “How can you love God whom you have not seen,” a New Testament writer asks, “if you don’t love your neighbor whom you have seen?”

            Vernia Dozier

I believe Jesus is the Word made flesh, the definitive action of God for our age to offer human beings a new possibility for participating in the dream of God, and the Christian church is missing the mark. The church missed its high calling to be the new thing in the world when it decided to worship Jesus instead of following him. We live in a day when it would be equally offensive to those who bear the name of Christian to hear Jesus blasphemed as to see him followed. And yet discipleship, not worship, is what Jesus called for.

            Vernia Dozier

Desert ascetics believed that the greatest enemies of the inner journey were hurry, crowds, and noise. The desert was a place for quieting the inner noise that kept them from hearing the whispers of God. In the desert, spiritual testing and transformation was expected and engaged. The lack of comforts and material distractions, and isolation from the complexity of human society led to growth in spiritual insight.

            Laura Swan from The Desert Mothers

            Desert ascetics faced suffering with determination and courage. They understood that suffering was grounded in their attachments to attitudes, thoughts, motives, relationships, and reputation. Suffering was the avenue toward freedom and detachment, toward maturity and humility. Suffering remained until they “let go.” A deep capacity for compassion often resulted.

            Compassion brought the ascetics to deep understanding of the struggles of others, enabled them to see themselves in the lives of others, and removed any sense of distance or distinction. Desert ascetics vigorously rejected any judgmental or critical attitude; they teach us that awareness of our weaknesses gives us an opportunity to deepen our compassion for the weaknesses of others. As we cultivate a tender, vulnerable, expansive heart that embraces the humanity of all, we see with new eyes… the eyes and heart of Christ.

            Laura Swan in The Desert Mothers

Jesus preached repentance.

We all need it. We have all rejected the dream of God, a good creation of a friendly world of friendly folk beneath a friendly sky. “We have each gone our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” We hear that verse from Second Isaiah as foreshadowing the suffering and death of Jesus, but of course the poet who wrote it meant no such thing. He was envisioning a saving people, a people who would live out before the world a new possibility for human life. The light of that community would change the world and bring the world nearer to God’s dream.

I think the biblical name for God’s dream is the kingdom of God.

            Verna Dozier from The Dream of God

The call to ministry is the call to be a citizen of the kingdom of God in a new way, the daring, free, accepting, compassionate way Jesus modeled. It means being bound by no yesterday, fearing no tomorrow, drawing no lines between friend and foe, the acceptable ones and out the outcasts. Ministry is commitment to the dream of God.

The church is the people of God. It takes two forms, the church gathered and the church scattered. We gather to break bread as a community, to hear our story, and to recommit ourselves to the dream of God. We scatter to live into that dream.

            Verna Dozier from The Dream of God

            “How do you follow Jesus?” “What would following Jesus look like?”  We want to be safe, to be sure we are doing the right thing.  That to me is the voice of the Tempter.

            Kingdom-of-God thinking calls us to risk.  We always see through a glass darkly, and that is what faith is about.  I will live by the best I can discern today.  Tomorrow I may find out I was wrong.  Since I do not live by being right, I am not destroyed by being wrong.  The God revealed in Jesus whom I call the Christ is a God whose forgiveness goes ahead of me, and whose love sustains me and the whole created world.  That God bursts all the definitions of our small minds, all the limitations of our timid efforts, all the boundaries of our institutions.

            Verna Dozier

A Daily Chant

Lord, you are here,
Lord, you are there.
You are wherever we do.
Lord, you guide us,
Lord, you protect us.
You are wherever we go.
Lord, we need you,
Lord we trust you,
You are wherever we go.
Lord, we love you,
Lord, we praise you,
You are wherever we go.

A prayer from the Dinka people of the Sudan

Dryness

Like a sponge,
dried up and brittle,
I wait,
longing to be soaked,
softened, and
made heavy
by God—
Eternal reservoir.

I wait
ever vigilant
to the first stirrings
of new consciousness,
ever longing
to be filled and swelled
by God in me,
utterly conscious,
in my emptiness,
of my destiny.

            Edwina Gately

Diminishment

To the degree that we
are broken and wounded—
so is God.
As the earth sickens and shrivels
through neglect and greed
—so does God.
As the little ones hunger
and are trampled upon
—so is God.
As more are imprisoned
and starved of light—
so is God.
So will God
be diminished
and hidden from us,
until—
deeply wounded—
we dare rise
from our dying
and, groaning mightily,
break open
our dark and tiny hearts
in the Spirit’s new birthing.

Edwina Gateley

“Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.”  This quote from Wayne Dyer is offered by Debra Landwehr Engle and Diane Glass in the following two weeks’ pairs of statements.  On the left hand side is a statement that represents one way of looking at a challenge or problem and on the right, a more positive way of viewing that same situation.  Each set of statements bears reflecting upon.

From                                                                            To

I am tired.                                              I am energized
I don’t know what I want.                      I have clear intentions.
I try to be in control of my life.              I surrender and trust.
I am limited by my fears.                       I am limitless.
I am a victim.                                         I create my life.

I am stuck                                              I move forward.
I am confused.                                       I am focused and mindful.
I don’t like myself.                                 I value myself. I am my own best friend.
I am afraid of change.                           I am excited by new possibilities.
I am lonely.                                           I am surrounded by love and support.
I am adrift.                                             I have a sense of purpose and meaning.
I am unworthy                                        I matter.
I see no meaning in my life.                   I see my life as part of a bigger picture.
I have no one to share my life with.       I give and receive love in all my                                                                                                 relationships.
I’m running out of time.                          I have all the time I need.
I could do anything if I just had the money.      I have everything I need.  The
                                                                         abundant universe supports my
                                                                         greatest desires.
I’ll believe it when I see it.                               I’ll see it when I believe it.
I’ll stop worrying when I get more work.          I’ll stop worrying, as worry
                                                                         creates barriers to what I want.
My life is hard.                                                  My life is joyous and playful.
I’m doing what everyone expects me to do.    I find opportunities to express
                                                                         myself in unique and fulfilling ways.

From                                                          To 

My life is full of problems.                           I see and experience peace.

I’ve failed in my relationships.                      I know that every experience is an
      opportunity for growth.  No
      experience is wasted. 

I am isolated and alone.                               I am connected to all things. I am one   
      with the universe. 

I see and feel fear everywhere.                    I extend love to all I see.

I let others dictate my life.                            I claim all of who I came here to be.

From                                                                            To 

I despair for the world.                                                 I understand the gift of pain 
                         and the opportunities it brings
                         for healing.

I have unhealthy habits.                                               I treat myself with love and      
                         nurturing.

I have no time for myself.                                             I set up my life to support my
                                                                                     needs.

I hope someone will being meaning to my life.           I am my own best partner,
                                                                                     thanks to my inner wisdom and
                                                                                     my relationship with a higher
                                                                                     power.

I’m not good enough.                                                    I am the light of the world.

From                                                                   To

I have unresolved conflicts with others               I forgive and make amends.

I let others take advantage of me.                       I set boundaries and ask for what
                                                                            I  need.

Life seems meaningless                                     I am actively engaged in the mystery
                                                                           of life.

Nothing goes my way.                                         I trust in a beautiful and benevolent
                                                                             world.

I am powerless.                                                    I have the power to create what I
                                                                             want.  I draw to me that which I
                                                                             most desire.

From                                                                  To

I don’t have enough.                                          I am grateful for the abundance in
                                                                           my life.

I bottle up my feelings.                                      I express my feelings honestly.

I worry about what others will think.                  I don’t take things personally.  What
                                                                           others think of me is none of my
                                                                           business.

I judge others for what they do.                         I see the innocence and light in
                                                                           others.

I can’t sit still.                                                     I find peace in quiet moments.

From                                                                 To       

I hate to be alone.                                            I treasure solitude.

I am filled with regret.                                      I love every moment.

I am not an outdoors person.                            I learn from the natural world.

I don’t feel like I belong.                                   I am at home.

I am overwhelmed by the demands of life.        I claim and nurture my authentic
                                                                           power.

From                                                                            To

My relationships are unhealthy and unsatisfying.        I have the courage to be me.

I suffer from physical illness.                                        I heal my spirit.

I’ve failed at what I’ve tried to do.                               I need do nothing to prove my
                                                                                     worth.

I am stuck in the past.                                                  I forgive myself and others.

I deny sadness and darkness in my life.                       I experience sadness and
                                                                                     darkness as  a way to move
                                                                                     closer to the light.

My world is broken.                                                       I am whole.

O Lord our God, when the storm is loud, and the night is dark, and the soul is sad, and the heart oppressed; then, as weary travelers, may we look to thee; and beholding the light of Thy love, may it bear us on, until we learn to sing Thy song in the night.

WE COME TO the Bible looking for the wrong thing. Luther cautioned us that the Bible is only the cradle in which the Christ child is laid, pointing beyond itself to God. The reason we choose not to see it that way is that we are terrified of freedom. That is the great sin of human beings. We want to have our life structured so that we will know every minute that we are right. We do that, however, in only one area, the religious area. We want to make sure that we have the right religion; then that frees us to do whatever we please in all the other areas of our lives. People who say the Bible is inerrant are looking for one place where there is absolute certainty. But the Bible is not that place. It points beyond itself. It points to God. Even though every single moment we may have to make terrifying decisions, we are not alone.

WITH JESUS, goodness is ambiguous; Jesus did not make little golden rules. He took the world as he found it, and I think that many times he was not saying, “This is what you should do.”  Many times he was saying, “What can you learn from this?”

            To me ambiguity embraces he totality of reality. There isn’t any one position that can do this—it is only one part of the totality of reality. And that is the most difficult thing for us simplistic humans to accept. I remember I had a student once who was so annoyed with me because I was always pointing out another possibility. She would say, “Miss Dozier, just tell me what you want and I will do it.”

            The comic strip Kudzu poses the issue very succinctly. The preacher and a young friend are sitting on a mountaintop. The young man sighs, “Life is full of ambiguity.”  He turns to the preacher. “Right, preacher?” he asks, and the preacher answers, “Yes and no.”

I have never thought that the Bible is for children, and I think that our reading it that way, on that level, misses the majesty of it. In fact, I think that it shouldn’t be taught to children at all because we have a tendency then to reduce it to that which younger minds can understand, and I think there is much in the Bible that can’t be understood by mature people.

I think the Bible is the record of human beings trying to plumb the unfathomable and leaving the record of what they found and what they did for the next traveler. It’s like one traveler leaving footprints that somebody else will find on his journey, and he will be helped on his journey and leave footprints that somebody else will be able to find—and so it’s a continuing story.

            Verna Dozier

It is not just that our twentieth-century individualism leads us to ask a question that’s different from the question that the New Testament people asked. They did ask that question, “What does it have to do with my life?” and they found out it had a lot to do with their lives. In answering that question they overturned the Roman world. They changed the world from the ancient world to the modern world. But the question is not asked enough now. In fact, the question is discouraged. The powers that be will always discourage that question, because if we ask, “What does it have to do with my life?” we may come to the conclusion, “It points out that my life is not the way it ought to be.”  And not only because of each one of us individually. The answer is not just that I’m supposed to pray more, to love more. My life is not the way it ought to be because the systems that bind me are not the way they ought to be. And the systems—the principalities and powers—do not want that kind of answer. If they have already co-opted the church, people will ask only, “How does this make me more pious?  How can I use this to make sure I get to heaven?”  When I do Bible study with people, I listen to more irrelevant discussions about heaven. We spend more time talking about heaven than about earth, despite the fact that God came to earth.

Verna Dozier

NEWNESS is the very nature of our calling from a God who fed the chosen people the wilderness only enough food each day for that day. There was no point in trying to hoard it because, as the King James Version puts it so elegantly, “On the morrow it stank.”  A God whom the prophet Isaiah heard saying, “Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”  A God who said, “You have heard that it was said of old, but I say unto you…,” and “A new commandment I give to you.”

            We are the people of a story, a story that is told through the pages of the Bible, in many forms of literature. No part of it stands by itself. Marcion, a Gnostic of the second century, egregiously missed the point, and we do sometimes too, when we pick out favorite verses and build temples on them.

            Those Sixty-six books, different as they are, tell one story, the story of a God who loves that God’s creation and wills to be known. At every Eucharist we dip into that story at three points: the beginning of the story—lessons from the Hebrew scriptures and the responsive psalm; the climax of the story—a reading from one of the gospels; and a glimpse into how the early church dealt with the dialogue between the Hebrew scriptures and the gospel—the epistles.

The Bible gives every indication that ambiguity is the very nature of our relationship with God. That is in the biblical story, basically all through it, but it’s a book that we learn by verses instead of by stories. If we did, we’d see that there are no wonderful heroes in the Bible, no really wonderful people. They’re all flawed; they wouldn’t even get gold stars in Sunday school. We’re not those people at all.  And yet they’re the ones whom God has chosen to remake the world. We’re in the new creation.

Verna Dozier

I remember saying to my mother one time, “Everybody is going to get to heaven. God loves all of us. Everybody is doing to get to heaven.”  And my dear mother, was a good Christian lady, said, “Well, if everybody is going to get to heaven, what’s the point in my trying to get to heaven?” I said, “There is no point in your trying to get to heaven, Mother. You’re already accepted.”

“Give me the answers. Tell me what the church says. Tell me what the Bible says.”  People misunderstand what the Bible is about. They want to make it a rulebook, a how-to-and how-not-to. How much more exciting the Bible is if we see it as human beings responding to the issues of their lives and always with the possibility that the response may differ from time to time because their lives have changed. The issues are different, and therefore the responses are different. But that is too troubling. Instead, we hear people say, “God said it, the Bible records it, and I believe it.” Or “My mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with the facts.”  I know because I grew up on the edge of that kind of morality.

            Verna Dozier

THE TRINITY is a very exciting idea for me because it says we can experience God in more than one way.  And none of the ways is perfect or complete.  We cannot put God in any box.  There is always a mystery about God; there’s always something about God that we don’t know.  In fact, I like the idea we have a Trinity because that exposes us to all possibilities.  It isn’t one, two, three, four, and that’s it.  It’s one, two, three, and that goes on forever.  The Trinity doesn’t close God in.  God doesn’t end with that.  I find that very exciting.  In fact, I find most books written about the Trinity leave me cold because they do exactly what I think the doctrine was trying not to do—that is, to close God in.

            Verna Dozier

Chosenness

I REALLY LIKE the idea of chosenness because it is sort of one degree beyond acceptance.  We’re all accepted, but more than that, we are chosen, and that gives us a role we have to discover and carry out—a responsibility.  It also gives us, if we can experience being chosen, the sense that we were wanted.  Our lives are not accidental.

            We can disappoint God.  God can weep over us, you know.

            The wonderful parable of the prodigal son is a great image of God.  With all that the father did, he could not stop the son from saying, “To hell with you, Dad.  I’m leaving!”  But whatever the son did, he could not destroy the love of the father.  And that’s a remarkable image of God.  I always like to remember that it was Jesus who told that parable—Jesus who knew more than anybody else what God was like.

            Verna Dozier

            As human beings, we long for an infallible source of authority.  Our particular Christian tradition of Anglicanism has resisted this over the centuries, but often at the cost of what seems like impending chaos.  We look to God as our source of authority but this God is, to use a wonderful phrase from Kathleen Norris’s The Cloister Walk, “alarmingly alive.”  Faith is ambiguous by its very nature because there is no certainty.  It is as if we were way out on a trapeze and we can’t really be sure anyone is going to catch us at the other end.  And every now and then somebody lets us fall.  There’s no certainty.  We just have to trust that God is going to be at the other end to take care of us.

            Faith is not the assurance that what we’re working for is going to happen.  Faith is only possible when the answer is not clear; otherwise it isn’t faith.  Instead, it is being pulled unknowing and sometimes kicking and screaming into the future.  It isn’t faith if it’s dependable, if we know in advance what’s going to happen.  That’s not faith; that’s a calculation, and very often we confuse the two.

            Verna Dozier

Many important changes in our society have come about because someone asked, “What does it mean that I believe in the biblical message?  When someone takes that message very seriously, it is likely to turn the known world upside down.  And, in my opinion, anyone who remains comfortable in the known world cannot be paying attention to the biblical message.

We have lost the capacity to dream great dreams.  We reduce God to the personal, private, “spiritual” sphere of our lives so that ministry becomes only personal, private, “spiritual” acts—a good deed here, a good deed there, a cup of cold water here, a loaf of freshly baked bread there, a prison visit here, a hospital call there, a night in a shelter here, a time with a troubled friend there.  We see no need to challenge the systems that make these “ministries” necessary.  The people of God are called to a possibility other than the kingdoms of this world.  They must be ambassadors in every part of life.

            Verna Dozier

Nonviolence is something more positive, more meaningful than the mere absence of violence. It means to respect the rights of others, to be concerned about their well-being, based on a sense of compassion. Today, there is a growing global awareness of what this implies, for the application of nonviolence is not restricted merely to other human beings. It also has to do with the ecology, the environment and our relations with all the other living beings with whom we share the planet. Since human beings are basically gentle by nature, I feel that we should not only maintain gentle, peaceful relations with our fellow human beings, but that it is also very important to extend the same kind of attitude towards our environment and the creatures who naturally live in harmony with it.

            The Dalai Lama

Lay your hands gently upon us,
let their touch render your peace,
let them bring your forgiveness and healing.
Lay your hands, gently lay your hands.

You were sent to free the broken-hearted,
You were sent to give sight to the blind,
You desire to heal all our illness.
Lay your hands, gently lay your hands.

Lord, we come to you through one another.
Lord, we come to you in all our need.
Lord, we come to you seeking wholeness.
Lay your hands, gently lay your hands.

            Rita J. Donovan, St. Bernadette Chapel, Lourdes, France

Now that the sun has set,
I sit and rest, and think of you.
Give my weary body peace.
Let me legs and arms stop aching.
Let my nose stop sneezing,
Let my head stop thinking.
Let me sleep in your arms.

            Dinka, date unknown

It is the wind and the rain, O God, the cold and the storm that make this earth of Thine to blossom and bear its fruit.  So in our lives it is storm and stress and hurt and suffering that make real men and women bring the world’s work to its highest perfection.  Let us learn then in these growing years to respect the harder sterner aspects of life together with its joy and laughter, and to weave them all into the great web which hands holy to the Lord.

            W.E.B. Du Bois in “Prayers for Healing”

Translation of the Aramaic understanding of “Our Father”

O Thou, the One from whom
breath enters being in
all radiant forms.

O Parent of the universe, from your
deep interior comes the next wave
of shining life.

O fruitful, nurturing Life-giver!
Your sound rings everywhere
throughout the cosmos.

Father-Mother who births Unity,
You vibrate life into form
in each new instant.

            Neil Douglas-Klotz in “The Hidden Gospel”

Dymphna, Patron of Epileptics and the Mentally Ill, about 650

GOD OF WHOLENESS, we praise you that Dymphna had the courage to flee her abusive father, through we’re horrified that he actually murdered her when he caught up. We give thanks for the people with epilepsy and mental illnesses who were healed by being near her tomb. We rejoice that the stigma of epilepsy and mental illness is diminishing. We lift up those who have fled violent relationships and those who have struggled with epilepsy and mental illnesses. Give us the wisdom and strength to work for healthful relationships in our families and in our communities. Amen.

From “She Who Prays”

It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance.

The Dalai Lama

The Aramaic word translated as “sin” could also mean that which misses the mark or falls into error, as well as a failure or mistake.  Its root points figuratively both to frustrated hopes and to threads that have become tangled.  The same root can also mean to dig out a well or furrow, or to sew, patch or mend something.  So the seeds of restoration are, so to speak, implied in what has been broken.

Detachment

I hope that, in spite of the alerts, you are enjoying to the full the peace and beauty of these warm, summerlike Witsuntide days.  One gradually learns to acquire an inner detachment from life’s menaces—although “acquire detachment” seems too negative, formal, artificial, and stoical; and it’s perhaps more accurate to say that we assimilate these menaces into our life as a whole.  I notice repeatedly here now few people there are who can harbor conflicting emotions at the same time.  When bombers come, they are all fears; when there is something nice to eat, they are all greed; when they are disappointed, they are all despair; when they are successful, they can think of nothing else.  They miss the fullness of life and the wholeness of an independent existence: everything objective and subjective is dissolved for them into fragments.  By contrast, Christianity puts us into many different dimensions of life at the same time; we make room in ourselves, to some extent, for God and the whole world.

It seems to me that the whole secret of life, if it is to be happy, is in the spirit of love; and when an old form of love dies we must take on the new.  If life is to be made interesting and worth its breath, we must look on ourselves as growing children, right up to the end of our days.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are those who plant peace each season; they shall be named the children of God.

Healthy are those who strike the note that unites; they shall be remembered as rays of the One Unity.

Aligned with the One are those who prepare the ground for all tranquil gatherings; they shall become fountains of Livingness.

Integrated are those who joyfully knit themselves together within; they shallb e stamped with the seal of Cosmic Identity.

Healed are those who bear the fruit of sympathy and safety for all; they shall hasten the coming of God’s new creation.

Neil Douglas-Klotz from “Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus”

I make the effort
to maintain a ground of oceanic silence
out of which arises the multitude
of phenomena of daily life.

I make the effort
to see and to passionately open in love
to the spirit that infuses all things.

I make the effort
to see the Beloved in everyone
and to serve the Beloved through everyone
(including the earth).

I often fail in these aspirations
because I lose the balance
between separateness and unity,
get lost in my separateness,
and feel afraid.

But I make the effort.

            Ram Dass in “Life Prayers”

Get articulate.
Move the blood.
Attend periphery.
Prepare to dance the Open Dance.
Learn to gather momentum and
Throw it away.
Explode into the ordinary and
Keep your eyes wide.
Embrace fear.
Suspend doubt.
Specify.
Strengthen.
Launch.
Float.
Dignify the confusion.
Visualize the next step.
Stick your toe in.
Get all wet!

            Barbara Dilly, Dancer and teacher, from “Prayers for a Thousand Years”